Another Trump-branded building decided to take down the president's name

Seth Wenig/AP

Gold letters spell out "Trump Place" on the front of a New York City condominium building on Jan. 11, 2018.

Gold letters spell out "Trump Place" on the front of a New York City condominium building on Jan. 11, 2018.

(Seth Wenig/AP)

David A. FahrentholdWashington Post

The residents of a Manhattan condominium called "Trump Place" have voted to remove the president's name from the tower's facade, the latest in a string of properties that have distanced themselves from the Trump brand since Election Day 2016.

Unit owners in the Upper West Side building, a 46-story tower at 200 Riverside Boulevard, were informed of the decision to remove the signs Wednesday afternoon in an email from the condo board.

According to the email, 69.3 percent of owners who participated in a vote in September and early October said they were in favor of taking down the Trump name. As a result, the board said, it had "passed a resolution to remove the signage."

The change will not affect the building's legal name, "200 Riverside Boulevard at Trump Place," only the signs "TRUMP PLACE" on its east and west facades.

"We are pleased to have resolved this matter democratically. Our entire community has engaged in a thorough and respectful deliberative process regarding how to address the signage on our building," the board wrote in its email, according to a copy obtained by The Washington Post. "We encourage everyone to move forward and respect the will of the community."

The email did not say when the signs would be removed.

The Trump Organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Even after the signs are removed, President Donald Trump's company still has a contract to manage the building until at least next year.

This building is part of a large complex that Trump helped develop in the 1990s on the side of an old railroad yard. He no longer owns the buildings, six of which originally bore the name "Trump Place."

After the election, Trump's name was removed from three "Trump Place" buildings on the same stretch of Riverside Boulevard, as well as from hotels in Toronto, Panama, and New York City's SoHo neighborhood.

The 200 Riverside Boulevard building was the subject of a lawsuit earlier this year, when the condo board asked a New York judge to determine if it had the right to remove its own signs. The Trump Organization insisted that it did not, saying that an agreement signed in 2000 meant the name could never come down.

The judge ruled for the condo board, saying it could take down the signs - but only if residents approved.

The latest move to remove Trump's name underscores how his political rise has transformed his brand. Once an icon of big-city success, he is now a deeply polarizing figure in liberal urban areas - including New York, where Trump first made his name.

The fight over the sign at 200 Riverside Boulevard began early last year, after some residents complained about the building's association with Trump. In response, the building's board took an informal poll of residents, asking them if they wanted to remove the name.

In that initial survey, about 63 percent said yes. But then the board got a letter from Alan Garten, chief legal officer for the Trump Organization.

"Please be advised that [removing the signs] would constitute a flagrant and material breach of the License Agreement," Garten wrote last March. He said that if the board made any effort to remove the sign, the Trump Organization "will have no choice but to commence appropriate legal proceedings."

Garten said that a licensing agreement signed in 2000, in which the building agreed to pay Trump $1 for the use of his name, prevented the signs from ever coming down.

To force the issue, the board sued the Trump Organization instead - and quickly won.

"The court does not find any of defendant's arguments convincing," Judge Eileen Bransten said, referring to the Trump Organization.

Trump still has his name on more than 40 buildings around the world, including the two remaining "Trump Place" buildings on Riverside Boulevard.